Open World began as a senior legacy project for Buhler high school in December of 2010.

Govinda is the director of the SAV school in Bageshwori, Nepal.

Benjamin Honeycutt, the original founder of the cause, became acquainted with Govinda Prasad Panthy through Artsnacks, an online artists’ community run by Kevin Honeycutt for the last few years. After speaking with Govinda, Ben and Kevin learned that his school (known as the SAV School in a rural region of Bageshwori, Nepal) lacked items that many would consider to be absolute necessities in education. After further discussion, he told them of his dream of bringing internet to his school. However, it soon became clear that his school’s lack of connectivity was going to make helping them a challenge. Govinda made it clear that some of the biggest issues they faced were resource-based.

With this problem in mind, the project was adopted and began seeking ways to help. After learning more from Govinda, it was discovered that it would cost around $2,000 USD to bring two laptops and a year’s worth of internet to his school. Also keeping Govinda’s dream of building a library in mind, the Open World Project set out to raise a total of $5,000 for the school. This later became known as “Phase One” for the cause.

￼Originally, Jake Waters, who is a member of the team and assists with filming, and Ben constructed a website explaining the mission of our project. They also built Facebook, Twitter, and Plurk pages to help spread the word about their goals.

After successes with spreading the story of the mission, an article done by a local paper was picked up by Associated Press. This allowed an individual named Nicolas Lal to discover the project through Google Alerts. He contacted Open World, and revealed that he had plans to travel to the school. Wanting to help in any way he could, Nicolas was able to coordinate with the cause and provide a first-hand account of the situation there. Nicolas witnessed the difficulties the school was facing and captured thousands of pictures, along with video, that he which he shared with those involved with the project. Observing the poor conditions of the school through Nicolas’ travels galvanized Open World’s determination to deliver aid to the SAV students.